George MC

Hi Cmfan He! So you've been there! Nice one! From what I've read it sounds like you get put through the wringer there. Re the bogging issue - I was cursing myself just an hour ago after losing three out of four M1s to bogging. I must admit I would like to see some sort of battlefield recovery, like vehciles towing each other out of the mess they have driven into. Maybe some day... Still these ditches do serve to constrain Blues movement and adds a buggeration factor Possible Spoilers for 1st Mission Victory Conditions # # # # # # # # # # # In the first mission there are several ways you can achieve your mission. Basic premise and as the brief states is to 'check out' the NAIs. You can do this by sending in units (dismounts or vehicles) to check em out - the NAIs are touch objectives so you get points for them, however to do so you run the risk of losing units in the enemy fire sacks. The other option, and as mentioned in the brief is to ID units and engage them by either direct or indirect fires. You get points for IDing some units and destroying others. It should therefore be possible to win this by IDing Threat units and/or KOing them rather than actually having to enter the NAIs and losing your own stuff. However some of the NAIs don't easily allow 'eyes on'... Good luck with the following missions Cheers fur noo George

Oops... In all the missions there are no weird surprises, what you are told and is shown on the maps is pretty much par for the course. In that mission you should also have recived a radio message warning of approaching enemy armour - I named a reinforcement unit with the radio message just to make sure:) Glad you're having fun still - good luck with the next few missions. Cheers fur noo George

Hi Guys He! Good to see this has sparked interest Thanks for all the comments and feedback, it's very much appreciated. I must admit when playing this out whilst designing it, I found it was a challenge to see if the balance was right. Like all these things after you've played it a few times you lose sight of the woods for the trees so to speak. The actual setting for this campaign is hypothetical. The main source of inspiration was a book called "The Defense of Hill 781" - subtitled an allegory of modern combat. In the book the setting for this series of actions is purgatory or as it is more commonly know the US Army's National Training Centre. That accounts for the Threat force experience levels - they are way more experienced than any unit I guess would be in RL. That is partly to offset the US forces inherent superiority with it's vehicles and firepower. OK - possible spoilers # # # # # # # # # # # # The first mission can be won just by IDing enemy units. Pushing to far to soon will see you in trouble. Mind it is a recce. No-one knows what exactly is there, hence the recce. In reality it is a stronger position than first thought, but any info you gain in this will work for you in the next action. You don't have many tanks true, but you do have a lot of Javelins Vehicles bogging is an issue. I put the drainage ditches in pretty much to limit movement, you have to plan where and how you are going to move through this sector. Still stuff that gets stuck should be OK for the next mission. I'm keen to see how you all get on, and if there are changes to be made I'm happy to make em So good luck with the following missions, look forward to your comments. Cheers fur noo George

It occasionally happens with the large scenarios. It happens to me when I am loading the next scenario in the Forging Steel campaign (after it prompts you to save the file), then as it is loading the next mission I get the 'out of memory'. If I load from the save file it works just fine. Only happens with the larger scenarios so guess it means what it says

Will do - I'm away from my PC at the moment will do whenI get back home. Cheers fur noo George

Merry Christmas! One for you track heads I've played it out myself but like all these things it could do with more takes on it. As such I reckon this is more a WIP rather than a final polished product! Important: You will need the USMC module and your game patched to 1.11 to play this campaign. Play Blue Vs Red AI; H2H only The Campaign This campaign covers a 12 hour period of intense mechanised combat which follows a US (Blue) balanced company combat team spearheading an attack against Threat (Red) mechanised forces. There are five main combat missions, assuming as the US (Blue) side you can fight your way through winning each one, if you don’t then you’ll have six actions to fight. Each mission has a distinct feel about it reflecting a key mission a mechanised combat team would, or might, be given. The enclosed flow chart shows the campaign flow from the Blue perspective with each action outlined. Core Units This campaign is designed to be played primarily from the US (Blue) side. The main core unit that is tracked through the campaign is on the US side and focuses around ‘Hammer Team’. However, the Threat side does have a core unit for part of the action – mostly the first few battles. For this reason the campaign is designed to be played primarily from a US (Blue perspective) against the Threat (Red) AI. In saying that I have included briefings and maps for the Red side thus enabling it to be played H2H. Each battle has several Threat (Red) AI plans so there is a certain amount of re-playability. You should also note if you decide to replay a battle then the AI might adopt a different strategy in it’s operations… Important!! The bottom line for the US player is you just cannot afford losses, at any stage. To do so will either see you kicked out of the campaign or facing an end battle with next to no units. Red can afford losses – in fact in many actions Red is fighting a desperately to stem the US (Blue) attacks or eliminate their gains. The challenge for the Blue player, surprise, surprise is to achieve the mission objectives whilst conserving his force. There will be no 7th Cavalry galloping over the hill to save the day, in any battle. Map and Battle Size All the battles are on, generally speaking, very large maps – typically around 2.5 x 2.5Km square. Unit sizes on map are generally around a few platoons to at most a reinforced company. No massed battalions here you’ll be relieved to hear! The new BFC patch 1.11 should see these maps load far quicker, in a few minutes on average. You can grab it over at: http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=314&func=fileinfo&id=148 As always feedback most welcome Cheers fur noo George Mc ps away over Christmas so will not be able to respond to any queries until I return.

I've an armoured based campaign about to come out. All the maps are at least 2 x 2km with s few larger. Load times aro a few minutes in the editor and about 10 when firing up the campaign. Hoping it will be out for XMas

YEAH - they make good prayer beads

Have you tired switching of shadows in the hot keys section. It's along shot but given your description it's hard to tell. With some Nvidia drivers there was an issue that with shadows enabled your units just seem to vanish, disable shadows and they appeared. Otherwise we'll need a save game file to see what is actually happening.

Ah the red mist of internet buying

Hi Dietrich Re your first question - if you don't want a command unit appearing on map you simply designate them as a reinforcement and have their time of arrical out with the timespan of your scenario - unfortunately does not work with two hour plus scenarios... Now "To Ambush or not to Ambush". That did cause some consternation amongst the beta testers! It's based on a Marines Tactical descision scenario. Possible spoilers # # # # # # # # # # You do have to keep your guys on the ball here. Once you ID the approaching Uncons you then have to decide how your going to take em out, but you also have to keep an eye on your flanks and rear. It is to easy for the ambushers to become the ambushed in this. Keep your guys moving so one multiple engages whilst the other pulls back a short bound - see the final scenes in "Tears of the Sun". If you do get caught out then I think pulling back to the rea edge of the map and hitting ceasefire works well. This is possible to win but it's just as easy given the small size of this to have your bum kicked! Hope you enjoyed it though Cheers fur noo George

If it's a large scenario it can take a while to load. I'd let it load then go away and leave it. Don't fiddle with task manager and stuff. Give it around 15 minutes. Cheers fur noo George

look up above you - five posts Mount up http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=73599 Drop off http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=82036 Cheers fur noo George

You already have this in CMSF - just make the objective visible to both players - this is done in the editor by the designer. Personnaly I like the differant ways the deisgner can create victory conditions. The flags in CMX1 pretty limited what you could do, and more often than not were there to guide the AI into an objective. In H2H well it just becames a charge for the flags IMO Cheers fur noo George ps never did like football!

Army squads split into two fire teams, marine squads break into three - so marine units get three action spots (sometimes as it does depend on the terrain and positioning of the teams given a face command), army squads only two.

It's back but it would appear the download numbers are missing, although the ratings and comments are still there.

I think what you might be seeing is the game resetting the graphics quaility to allow the game to run. I see this when playing very large maps, where the game to keep running steps down the graphics settings and re-draws the map. It's certainly a lot better than it was with larger maps. Re the buzzing noise - I get the same in both CMSF and CMBB - it's a sound card driver issue in my case. But as my sound card is an old one there are no further updates for it. It's not that often it happnes, pretty infrequent in fact. The card I have is an old Soundblaster Audigy. Cheers fur noo George

Parade Ground Missions - there's a great idea

I run a GeForce 8800Gt card on WindowsXP and it plays CMSF, CMX1 just fine.

Do you have any save game files that show the above behaviour? If you do could you email them to me please at my address in my profile. Cheers fur noo George

BÄKE BATTLES: “DER MENSCH” IN THE EAST For the third in our series of outstanding armored battalion/kampfgruppe level commanders on the Ostfront, we will recreate some key battles from the career of the legendary Major General Dr. Franz Bake. He is described by some as “The best kampfgruppe leader of the panzer force”. Although he served in the West in 1940 and for a time in 1944, we will focus on his career in the East. Bäke was known simply as “Der Mensch” to his troops. It is hard to translate this term, which includes the qualities of courage, compassion, and loyalty. Unassuming, friendly and optimistic in outlook, he was deadly serious when it came to conducting panzer operations in a way meant to produce victory at the lowest cost to his men. Prevented by circumstance from panzer command during Barbarossa and Case Blue, Bäke was the quintessential kampfgruppe commander of the second half of the war. He was a man whose personal qualities enabled him to take command of disparate units stitched together into kampfgruppes that were given extremely difficult fire-brigade missions during the long German retreat. He returned to his civilian life as a dentist after the war and died in an automobile accident in 1978. Thousands attended his funeral, in tribute to “der Mensch”. Charlie Meconis and George McEwan Bäke Prelude at Pokhlebin 42 3 December 1942. The trapped German 6th Army lies in Stalingrad, forbidden by Hitler to break out. But Hitler has belatedly agreed to a rescue attempt-Operation Winter Storm, directed by General von Manstein. Armeegruppe Hoth's XLVIIth Panzer Corps is to spearhead the attack from Kotelnikovo, 80 kilometers southwest of the Stalingrad pocket in the bleak Kalmyk Steppe. Rushing all the way from France aboard 75 trains, General Erhard Raus's completely re-fitted and superbly trained 6th Panzer Division is arriving. His panzer grenadiers have already occupied a series of strongpoints north of Kotelnikovo, supported by artillery in place there. But his full strength 11th Panzer Regiment is only now assembling in random order, and already there are reports of Soviet cavalry probes around the village of Pokhlebin. The Reds have reacted quickly to the relief force's arrival. On the 3rd December 1942 the combined arms spearhead of Lt. General Meshkin's IV Cavalry Corps makes violent contact with advance elements from Raus's 6th Panzer Division at the small village of Pokhlebin. Latter that day the newly arrived 11th Panzer Regiment hastily assembles at Kotelnikovo for a counter attack. Among the first panzer commanders ready for action is a middle-aged dentist, Major Dr. Frank Bäke. Old enough to be a father to his men, he is already loved and respected by the panzertruppen of the II. Battalion. Bäke and his battalion are the spearhead of that counter attack. The opening round of Winter Storm is about to begin. A Panzer legend is about to be born… Bäke's Winter Storm I This scenario follows on from the earlier Bäke CMBB scenario "Bäke's Prelude at Pokhlebin". After the victory at Pokhlebin, General Raus is supremely confident in the superiority of his tank forces. In the steady rain of a brief thaw, 6th Panzer sent most of its mobile forces in a Kampfgruppe commanded by Panzer Regiment 11's Colonel Hünersdorff across the Aksay on the road toward Verkne Kumsky early on 14 December. Encountering only light opposition at first, most of the Kampfgruppe had just arrived in Verkne Kumsky around 9am when the first Soviet combined tank and infantry attack struck the village from the north. As this attack was being repulsed, reports from both captured Soviets and the II Panzer battalion's light recon platoon of Pz IIs indicated that a large Soviet tank force was on the move southeast of Verkne Kumsky. In order to "fully use his mobility and his full firepower to seek out the enemy in the open terrain", Col. Hünersdorff immediately ordered Major Dr. Bäke to take his reinforced II Battalion out of the village to find and destroy the reported Soviet tank force. Bäke used terrain cover to move his force some 4km south of Verkne Kumsky just to the west of the road and then turned them to the east. One of the most critical and intense tank battles in the history of the Eastern front is about to begin, and Major Bäke will be in the thick of it... Map size: 2.2km x 4km Total points combined: 13000 Bäke's Winter Storm II No 3 in the CMBB Combat History series Bäke Battles: “Der Mensch” In The East”, this scenario follows on from the earlier CMBB scenario "Bäke's Winter Storm I". 15 December 1942 The bulk of Panzer Regiment 11, under the leadership of Colonel von Hünersdorff, is assigned to the forward mobile defense of Verkhne Kumksy, a critical jumping off point for the next thrust toward Stalingrad. Major Dr. Bake is deputy commander of this force. A holding force under Hauptmann Löwe is set-up in the village of Verkhne Kumsky itself. But the tankists and motorized infantry of Colonel-General V.T. Volksii's Soviet 4th Mechanized Corps are full of confidence and grim determination too. They spearheaded the southern pincer that surrounded the 6th Army in Stalingrad and they will die before allowing the German rescue attempt to succeed. Despite the blue skies above the Kalmuk steppe another winter storm is about to break... Map size: 6km x 4km Total points combined: 22000 Bäke's Knights Cross At New Year Part I No 4 in the CMBB Combat History series Bäke Battles: "Der Mensch" In The East", this scenario follows on from the earlier CMBB scenario "Bäke's Winter Storm II". The dawn of 1943 in southern Russia is masked by a freezing fog. The Soviet High Command’s “Little Saturn” offensive has broken through and buried the Italian 8th Army—and with it all hope for the surrounded and starving German 6th Army in Stalingrad. But Stalin wants more than Stalingrad. He has ordered his worn-down forces to continue the offensive to cut off all German forces in southern Russia. One more breakthrough and the war in the East might be over. Only one month earlier, the full strength German 6th Panzer Division had arrived in the region with 150 armored fighting vehicles to lead a bold rescue attempt to break through to Stalingrad. [see our scenarios “A Bäke Prelude at Pokhlebin” and “Bäke’s Winter Storm I and II”] Now the depleted division has been rushed back 150 kilometers to the west in a desperate attempt to stem the Red Army avalanche in its rear. The division is widely scattered in order to cover over 100 kilometers of the front along the Bystraya river from Morozovsk to Tatsinskaya between the Don and Donez rivers. Red Army Lt. General V. M. Badanov has been ordered to combine the exhausted remnants of the 24th and 25th Tank Corps and the 1st Guards Mechanized Corps for one last thrust to victory. Their task is to cut the railway line that leads from Morosovsk to Stalingrad, and thereby seal the fate of the 6th Army trapped in Stalingrad. Under cover of darkness and fog they are on the move. In his headquarters in the small village of Novo Maryevka, Major Dr. Franz Bäke and the surviving tank and supply crews of his II. Abteilung of the 6th Panzer Division’s 11th Panzer Regiment have quietly marked the beginning of the New Year. But the flares suddenly bursting in the early dawn sky do not celebrate the New Year, Alarm! Russian tanks! Map size: 2km x 2km Total points combined: 7500 Bäke's Knights Cross At New Year Part 2 No 5 in the CMBB Combat History series Bäke Battles: "Der Mensch" In The East", this scenario follows on from the earlier CMBB scenario "Bäke’s Knights Cross at New Year Part 1”. Bäke’s II. Abteiling of the 6th Panzer Division’s 11 Panzer Regiment fights a desperate armoured action against the exhausted remnants of Red Army General Badanov’s Soviet 24th and 25th Tank Corps and the 1st Guards Mechanized Corps as they make one last try to cut the vital rail link to Stalingrad. High noon on New Year’s Day 1943. As the fog begins to burn off, the last wave of the Soviet tidal surge known as Operation Little Saturn is crashing up against Major Dr. Franz Bäke’s panzers near the village of Novo Maryevka. After a vicious fog-shrouded brawl at dawn in the village [see “Bäke’s Knight’s Cross Part 1”] yet another Soviet tank and infantry force, under the command of Red Army Lt. General V. M. Badanov is making a last gasp effort to cut the vital railroad from Morozovsk to Stalingrad, which runs south of Novo Maryevko, and thereby seal the fate of the 6th Army trapped in Stalingrad. Nothing much stands in their way except what’s left of Bäke’s II. Abteiling of the 6th Panzer Division’s 11 Panzer Regiment. Red Army General Badanov has scraped together his very last reserves from the exhausted remnants of the Soviet 24th and 25th Tank Corps and the 1st Guards Mechanized Corps to make one last try for glory. The stakes are high and there are no more cards to play. Both sides will have to show their hand. Map size: 2.2km x 4km Total points combined: 14000 All of the above scenarios are available for test over at The Proving Grounds. There are several more scenarios to follow in the series covering actions during the Kharkov fighting in the winter of 43, Kursk in the summer of 43 and then the operations to open a way out for the troops stuck in the Korsun Pocket.

BÄKE BATTLES: “DER MENSCH” IN THE EAST For the third in our series of outstanding armored battalion/kampfgruppe level commanders on the Ostfront, we will recreate some key battles from the career of the legendary Major General Dr. Franz Bake. He is described by some as “The best kampfgruppe leader of the panzer force”. Although he served in the West in 1940 and for a time in 1944, we will focus on his career in the East. Bäke was known simply as “Der Mensch” to his troops. It is hard to translate this term, which includes the qualities of courage, compassion, and loyalty. Unassuming, friendly and optimistic in outlook, he was deadly serious when it came to conducting panzer operations in a way meant to produce victory at the lowest cost to his men. Prevented by circumstance from panzer command during Barbarossa and Case Blue, Bäke was the quintessential kampfgruppe commander of the second half of the war. He was a man whose personal qualities enabled him to take command of disparate units stitched together into kampfgruppes that were given extremely difficult fire-brigade missions during the long German retreat. He returned to his civilian life as a dentist after the war and died in an automobile accident in 1978. Thousands attended his funeral, in tribute to “der Mensch”. Charlie Meconis and George McEwan Bäke Prelude at Pokhlebin 42 3 December 1942. The trapped German 6th Army lies in Stalingrad, forbidden by Hitler to break out. But Hitler has belatedly agreed to a rescue attempt-Operation Winter Storm, directed by General von Manstein. Armeegruppe Hoth's XLVIIth Panzer Corps is to spearhead the attack from Kotelnikovo, 80 kilometers southwest of the Stalingrad pocket in the bleak Kalmyk Steppe. Rushing all the way from France aboard 75 trains, General Erhard Raus's completely re-fitted and superbly trained 6th Panzer Division is arriving. His panzer grenadiers have already occupied a series of strongpoints north of Kotelnikovo, supported by artillery in place there. But his full strength 11th Panzer Regiment is only now assembling in random order, and already there are reports of Soviet cavalry probes around the village of Pokhlebin. The Reds have reacted quickly to the relief force's arrival. On the 3rd December 1942 the combined arms spearhead of Lt. General Meshkin's IV Cavalry Corps makes violent contact with advance elements from Raus's 6th Panzer Division at the small village of Pokhlebin. Latter that day the newly arrived 11th Panzer Regiment hastily assembles at Kotelnikovo for a counter attack. Among the first panzer commanders ready for action is a middle-aged dentist, Major Dr. Frank Bäke. Old enough to be a father to his men, he is already loved and respected by the panzertruppen of the II. Battalion. Bäke and his battalion are the spearhead of that counter attack. The opening round of Winter Storm is about to begin. A Panzer legend is about to be born… Bäke's Winter Storm I This scenario follows on from the earlier Bäke CMBB scenario "Bäke's Prelude at Pokhlebin". After the victory at Pokhlebin, General Raus is supremely confident in the superiority of his tank forces. In the steady rain of a brief thaw, 6th Panzer sent most of its mobile forces in a Kampfgruppe commanded by Panzer Regiment 11's Colonel Hünersdorff across the Aksay on the road toward Verkne Kumsky early on 14 December. Encountering only light opposition at first, most of the Kampfgruppe had just arrived in Verkne Kumsky around 9am when the first Soviet combined tank and infantry attack struck the village from the north. As this attack was being repulsed, reports from both captured Soviets and the II Panzer battalion's light recon platoon of Pz IIs indicated that a large Soviet tank force was on the move southeast of Verkne Kumsky. In order to "fully use his mobility and his full firepower to seek out the enemy in the open terrain", Col. Hünersdorff immediately ordered Major Dr. Bäke to take his reinforced II Battalion out of the village to find and destroy the reported Soviet tank force. Bäke used terrain cover to move his force some 4km south of Verkne Kumsky just to the west of the road and then turned them to the east. One of the most critical and intense tank battles in the history of the Eastern front is about to begin, and Major Bäke will be in the thick of it... Map size: 2.2km x 4km Total points combined: 13000 Bäke's Winter Storm II No 3 in the CMBB Combat History series Bäke Battles: “Der Mensch” In The East”, this scenario follows on from the earlier CMBB scenario "Bäke's Winter Storm I". 15 December 1942 The bulk of Panzer Regiment 11, under the leadership of Colonel von Hünersdorff, is assigned to the forward mobile defense of Verkhne Kumksy, a critical jumping off point for the next thrust toward Stalingrad. Major Dr. Bake is deputy commander of this force. A holding force under Hauptmann Löwe is set-up in the village of Verkhne Kumsky itself. But the tankists and motorized infantry of Colonel-General V.T. Volksii's Soviet 4th Mechanized Corps are full of confidence and grim determination too. They spearheaded the southern pincer that surrounded the 6th Army in Stalingrad and they will die before allowing the German rescue attempt to succeed. Despite the blue skies above the Kalmuk steppe another winter storm is about to break... Map size: 6km x 4km Total points combined: 22000 Bäke's Knights Cross At New Year Part I No 4 in the CMBB Combat History series Bäke Battles: "Der Mensch" In The East", this scenario follows on from the earlier CMBB scenario "Bäke's Winter Storm II". The dawn of 1943 in southern Russia is masked by a freezing fog. The Soviet High Command’s “Little Saturn” offensive has broken through and buried the Italian 8th Army—and with it all hope for the surrounded and starving German 6th Army in Stalingrad. But Stalin wants more than Stalingrad. He has ordered his worn-down forces to continue the offensive to cut off all German forces in southern Russia. One more breakthrough and the war in the East might be over. Only one month earlier, the full strength German 6th Panzer Division had arrived in the region with 150 armored fighting vehicles to lead a bold rescue attempt to break through to Stalingrad. [see our scenarios “A Bäke Prelude at Pokhlebin” and “Bäke’s Winter Storm I and II”] Now the depleted division has been rushed back 150 kilometers to the west in a desperate attempt to stem the Red Army avalanche in its rear. The division is widely scattered in order to cover over 100 kilometers of the front along the Bystraya river from Morozovsk to Tatsinskaya between the Don and Donez rivers. Red Army Lt. General V. M. Badanov has been ordered to combine the exhausted remnants of the 24th and 25th Tank Corps and the 1st Guards Mechanized Corps for one last thrust to victory. Their task is to cut the railway line that leads from Morosovsk to Stalingrad, and thereby seal the fate of the 6th Army trapped in Stalingrad. Under cover of darkness and fog they are on the move. In his headquarters in the small village of Novo Maryevka, Major Dr. Franz Bäke and the surviving tank and supply crews of his II. Abteilung of the 6th Panzer Division’s 11th Panzer Regiment have quietly marked the beginning of the New Year. But the flares suddenly bursting in the early dawn sky do not celebrate the New Year, Alarm! Russian tanks! Map size: 2km x 2km Total points combined: 7500 Bäke's Knights Cross At New Year Part 2 No 5 in the CMBB Combat History series Bäke Battles: "Der Mensch" In The East", this scenario follows on from the earlier CMBB scenario "Bäke’s Knights Cross at New Year Part 1”. Bäke’s II. Abteiling of the 6th Panzer Division’s 11 Panzer Regiment fights a desperate armoured action against the exhausted remnants of Red Army General Badanov’s Soviet 24th and 25th Tank Corps and the 1st Guards Mechanized Corps as they make one last try to cut the vital rail link to Stalingrad. High noon on New Year’s Day 1943. As the fog begins to burn off, the last wave of the Soviet tidal surge known as Operation Little Saturn is crashing up against Major Dr. Franz Bäke’s panzers near the village of Novo Maryevka. After a vicious fog-shrouded brawl at dawn in the village [see “Bäke’s Knight’s Cross Part 1”] yet another Soviet tank and infantry force, under the command of Red Army Lt. General V. M. Badanov is making a last gasp effort to cut the vital railroad from Morozovsk to Stalingrad, which runs south of Novo Maryevko, and thereby seal the fate of the 6th Army trapped in Stalingrad. Nothing much stands in their way except what’s left of Bäke’s II. Abteiling of the 6th Panzer Division’s 11 Panzer Regiment. Red Army General Badanov has scraped together his very last reserves from the exhausted remnants of the Soviet 24th and 25th Tank Corps and the 1st Guards Mechanized Corps to make one last try for glory. The stakes are high and there are no more cards to play. Both sides will have to show their hand. Map size: 2.2km x 4km Total points combined: 14000 All of the above scenarios are available for test over at The Proving Grounds. There are several more scenarios to follow in the series covering actions during the Kharkov fighting in the winter of 43, Kursk in the summer of 43 and then the operations to open a way out for the troops stuck in the Korsun Pocket.

You'll have to be more specfic - what side you playing, who called the fire in, si the fire from the AI? Is it at the start? There are a whole heap of reasons as to why could be inaccurate, so if you could fill in the detail it'll help track down what the issue is. Friendly fire from arty and CAS is modelled in game. FWIW arty fire and especially close air support fire can be inaccurate at times. Danger close fire brings the risk of being hit by your own fire. Cheers fur noo George

Hi Guys There is more fun to be had after an hour - but it does depend on when exactly the fun arrives. I'm thinking in retrospect the timing of that next bit of fun could have been tweaked. I'm not sure as how much detail you both want about when this fun arrives - suffice to say it does give the fighting a new lease of life. Cheers fur noo George

Dusty Warriors by Richard Holmes (Some good accounts of Brit armoured battlegroup ops in Iraq) Sniper One by Sgt Dan Mills (Gripping first hand account) 3 Para by Patrick Bishop (Echo above comments - gripping read).